Samhain Publishing

I’m a forty four year old woman who just had her first mammogram a month ago. I found something in my right breast and it scared me enough to get my butt moving. With the death of one of my dearest friends from breast cancer in March, this was nothing to fool around with.

There was nothing in my right breast. There was, and is however, what looks like a Tylenol with an ear on it in my left breast. Very deep, right against the chest wall. I would not have found it on my own. As this posts, I am getting a deep tissue biopsy, or some such. The name is not important. What is important is that they are numbing me up and putting a huge needle in my breast to see if they can figure out what this is. Chances are good it’s nothing, but the doctor is very worried because of the location and some lymph nodes that are enlarged on my neck.

I waited. I waited and waited and never got a mammogram and now there’s a chance I’m going to pay for it. The ridiculous thing is that it’s, Breast Cancer Awareness Month and here I sit with a lump. A big ole, Mickey Mouse with one ear sitting in my boob, doing who knows what?

I would not have known without the mammogram. Sure, it’s easy to forget about it, make excuses. Women do that. We poo-poo and put off and this is incredibly important. This is a cancer that, if caught early, has a huge cure rate. This is something we can do something about. I know a lot of women who are scared of a mammogram. Is it a fun time? No. Is it killer pain? Childbirth is worse, so is breaking a bone, or a really bad period. It’s ten seconds of, “YOU’RE GOING TO DO WHAT TO MY BOOB? and then it’s over.

I’ve caused myself, my friends and my family fear because I waited and I could cost them more than that. Get a baseline mammogram in your thirties. Then, after forty go every year. Most insurance covers it and there are programs if it does not. This is not a joke, it is not something to put off out of fear and it can be a party. Go with your friends. Have ice cream afterwards. Make it a strange, but goofy party and go in pink hats. Just do it. Don’t be me. Sitting here for a couple weeks scared and feeling helpless. It’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever done. Outside of marrying my first husband, of course.

Sure the odds are good, but are the goods really odd? That’s the saying about Alaskan men. Find out in this funny, sexy romp about a woman who loves to make love happen for others, but forgets about herself.

Ladies! is part of the, Midsummer Night’s Steam anthology, “Overheated,” and it’s a hoot of a ride.

A run in with the mayor, Dave, sets the sparks flying and heat smoking. Dave does not want Chastity’s cadre of red-lipped floozies distracting his men. There’s the new cruise ship port to worry about, to add revenue to the town. Chastity isn’t about to let some idiot tell her what to do. Somewhere along the way the anger turns to passion and they end up in the last place they both expect, bed.

Hot sex to burn your fingers, and my usual group of interesting characters makes this a great read, along with the four other stories in this anthology. It’s out in paperback, so what are you waiting for? Go get yerself a hot Alaskan stud and have a summer fling!

My life just turned a tad more interesting. I don’t write historical fiction, but I want to. What’s stopping me? Fear baby. That’s right, I’m a big-ole scardy cat, fur fluffed, claws extended, hanging on to the ceiling like some cartoon kitteh all shivery and shaky. Why? Cause those who read historical romance are sticklers for accuracy. How would I know? I read historical romance. Oh, I don’t go so far as to insist my characters in the Renaissance don’t bathe, I bathe, they should too. I don’t want romantic characters smelling like they don’t wipe their behinds properly. Talk about suspending my disbelief, ewww.

Other than the bathing thing, and maybe not sharing a communal cup, I’m pretty insistent. That dress better have a corset under it, and if we’re in the 1500’s, it better not be your waist your cinching, but a nice conical figure you’re making. The horses better be right and falconers better dang well know their stuff. Food should be accurate too. Right now I’m watching, “The Tudors” and I’m having fits about the loosey-goosey time-lines, missing characters (at this rate Mary Queen of Scott’s would not ever exist, since her mother was never born and her sister died without issue) and general costuming missteps. Why be accurate? It’s history and when you’re messing with reality changing our perception of it, changes it as a whole. People buy into what they see. It took years for my people, Native Americans, to shake off this icky image of the bloodthirsty savage. So history is important and it’s important to people who read and write about it.

Now, onto the interesting thing in my life. I auditioned for, and got a part in The Michigan Renaissance Festival. How cool is that? I’m an Italian flower seller in England in the late 1500’s. So I’ve been researching garb, designing my dresses, and underclothes, learning songs (did I mention I’m singing to? I am) and taking Italian lessons with Rosetta Stone. Yes, yes, Renaissance Faires are not history as it existed, but history as we would like it to be. I do get that, but this will give me some insight into that time. More insight than the average faire goer. There are language classes, acting workshops and history lessons that are all part of the process. My character is not a merchant, she’s an actor playing a part. Actually selling said flowers is optional.

So, I have research at the tips of my fingers. Not wholly accurate, but a darn site better than some of the stuff that’s out there, and I’ll take it. Huzzah!

Oh, and before I forget, Lady Lillian’s Guide to Amazing Sex is out in paperback! Get thee to a Borders, Amazon, or Barnes and Nobles and order thee a copy today. Yes, it’s set in modern times, but it’s funny and romantic and very sexy. That’s from some wonderful reviewers. I am very proud of this book. I know my readers will love it.

It’s been a hell of a year, so far and it’s just started. My friend, Mark fell to his death in December. We buried him as the year turned over. My age, forty-four, smart, funny, talented. Beyond talented. A photographer, friend who could tell the world a story in one click. A story I would take pages to write.

That’s bad. It’s not all.

My dear friend, Sue, is in hospice. She’s what the hospice people call, “actively dying.” Pardon me, but I’ve yet to figure out the difference between sort of dying and really working at it. When I’m, “actively running,” I’m really out there, but Sue does not give anything up without a fight. Not her daughter when the doctors said she would not live after a head trauma, not her life. She was given the news over a year ago that she was not going to make it out of her breast cancer alive. She thumbed her nose and lived more in this last year, than I’ve lived in all of mine. Go Sue. She is not trying to die here. It’s not a project she’s working on, like painting her kitchen. Which she did a few months ago, when she was on more morphine than is probably legal. She’s something else.

So, what has all this death taught me? I have no freaking idea. How’s that for a crap answer?

I want to stand on some sort of pedestal and shout to the world about how the loss and soon to be loss, of some of the people who have had the greatest influence on my life had made me this amazing person, but anyone who knows me would laugh like a loon. I’m not someone who takes subtle hints from the powers that be. They need to thump me over the head with a shovel, before I get any divine messages. Even then, they come in fuzzy. Probably from the head injury associated with the thumping.

I have learned a few things, or at least I think I have. Humans do not deal well with absolutes. We’re always looking for the wiggle room, the flaw in the logic, our special, “way out.” So I’m not going to say that this terrible time in my life has changed me, because change seems to imply permanence. I’m about as permanent as your average earthquake. Still, there are some things that I seem to have enough insight on to share with others.

Don’t stay pissed. Mark had the unmitigated gall to die while we were fighting. Yep, I had to sit there at his funeral knowing the last words we shared, were not so nice. Don’t get me wrong, I’m never cruel, and neither was he, but what a maroon I was. I should have broken down and called him and now I can’t. I don’t have his number where he is and no one seems to be calling me with messages from the great beyond, so I’m going to have to either forgive myself for that fight, or learn to be miserable about it and live with regret. I don’t like regret, but self forgiveness is hard. I do wish he’d find a way to talk to me, but since I am not Jonathon Edwards, I may be out of luck.

Life’s short and it’s unforgiving. Live hard. Sue is fifty one. Just a few years older than I am. I already told you that she lived her life more in the past year than ever before. I think she took three cruises, went to Italy, and did a weekend in Vegas with me and the gals. She also threw a few awe inspiring parties and, until a few days ago when she became too tired to do it, was hosting gatherings in her room in hospice. All the while sending a slew of cards to people she loves and pestering me, among others, to get our heads on straight and deal with some serious issues. Dang! That’s a life well lived and that’s only the last year.

She also has the incredible ability to make the people she cares about feel special. She really listens to people. I listen, but there’s always other things going on in my brain. I need to slow down in some areas and move it along in others. Sue reminds me to live my damn life, now! Not when I lose a few more pounds, or when I get another book written, but today. Celebrate life TODAY! There are no other guarantees.

So now I am planning another book, training for a marathon, and telling people I love that I love them more often. I’m also letting petty crap blow over more, but I will never be perfect at that. Will it stick? I have no clue. I think a lot of life is tossing poo at a wall and seeing what sticks and grows flowers. Right now I’m flinging as fast as I can, and laughing at the splats. Which is a good start at living a better life. I’ll take it.

My new-found abilities to amazing and impress, as a young woman, did not begin all at once. It didn’t hit me in a lightening strike, more of a subtle realization over time. One day I was jumping on a trampoline alone, the next five boys from my neighborhood were eagerly offering to spot me. I had no clue why. Let’s just say I was a bit dense, and leave it at that.

I was never popular in my school years, mostly from idiot mistakes of my own making. I grew up in a town where wealth and looks were everything. I was cute, don’t get me wrong, but not as cute as the other girls and I was far too willing to spout my thoughts and opinions, even when they were not held by others. I also was a tad clingy. Something that people who know me now have a hard time believing. I’m not in the least clingy now, except with my husband. He ignores it, so it’s all good.

Yep, I was clueless about boys, and why they suddenly took an interest in me and what they were interested in. I went along, as I always did, head in a book.

Until, that day. It was a Saturday. I remember that, because I was in Lake Michigan early, and I know I’d just started seventh grade. My best buddy, and neighbor, Dan, came down to the beach to hang out. We did that a lot, hung out. Together, we cooked up ways to piss off my bitchy, tattletale sister and build a better fort in the woods across the street from my house.

I surfaced, breathless from the fall-cooled water> Shaking like a large Lab, drops srpayed everywhere. I doused Dan for being a complete pansy and refusing to duck under the water.

“Quit it.” He held up his hands nin defense.

I laughed and jumped out of the water to splash him. It was then I noticed, his eyes were no longer glued on my face, but in the middle of my chest. I thought I was wearing a piece of algae or something worse, so I looked down. Nope, no gunk, just my burgeoning boobs. Tan from a summer of sunshine, my erect nipples poked through my modest swimsuit. I did not get it.
Shrugging it off, I resumed the camaraderie that I’d long shared with him and didn’t think much of it. A few days later I was talking to a fellow student, whose eyes were also glued to my chest.

Hmm, apparently these annoying things had the amazing ability to attract attention, a lot of it. About this time the infamous Farrah Faucet posters started going up in every male school locker. It was hard to not notice it, her nipples were visible. Male students drooled. I saw otherwise smart young men became gaping morons in the presence of a breast. I felt power, for the first time in my life.

I’ve never been someone who uses sex to get my way. It feels foreign to me. I’m not against, it. I just don’t do it well. I’ve never been a woman who collected jewelry for my sexual talents, or promises. Still, to not notice the effect of my rapidly morphing C cups, I would have to have been blind, or stupid and I’ve never been accused of being either.

My boobs could get me help in a pinch, a pencil picked up, a jammed locker opened. It was almost miraculous. These two mammeries, strapped to my front, over which I had no control, could be control themselves. Wow!

I mostly cover them, these days. Age and breastfeeding have taken their toll. Still, I trot them out on festive occasions. They are not completely without their charms. I can still shake it, if I want to.

Power, it’s a beautiful thing.

My story, Lady Lillian’s Guide to Amazing Sex is out today! I love this story, it’s funny and sexy and something I’m very proud of.

What does a girl do when she catches her fiancé in her bed with a hooker? Start over-this time with her eyes wide open. Lisa Simpkins is newly single. Catching your fiancé being sodomized by a hooker can do that to a relationship. Unfortunately for Lisa, this mess put a huge kink in her carefully orchestrated life plan.

Good thing her best friend, Gina, can talk Lisa into anything, including a makeover complete with sex toys and a collection of highly erotic DVD’s. Gina’s determined to bring out Lisa’s inner wild woman. Even if that wild woman comes out kicking and screaming. Imagine Gina’s glee when they run into Matt Richards, the oh-so-hot junior partner who stars in Lisa’s torrid fantasies. The mission is clear. Get Matt to teach Lisa all about sex. Lisa’s not sure about Gina’s plan, but the man is gorgeous, smart and funny. Will Matt conquer Lisa’s fear of falling in love again, or will their tryst end when Matt teaches Lisa everything he knows?

I hope you love this story, as much as I do and sassy reading!

Nancy Lindquist
My Web Site

“What do you do, dear?”

The lady looked at me with a curious gaze, and some genuine interest. My husband rubbed my knee, our symbol of encouragement. He’s incredibly proud of his author wife. That’s when it happened. My father cleared his throat, my sister looked at the ceiling and the hush at the dinner table went from interested anticipation, to shame in the space of a heartbeat. “She writes torrid novels. The kind you don’t let anyone else know you read.”
The table fell into an uncomfortable silence. In the midst of my aunt and uncle’s fiftieth anniversary party, we stood out. Nearby diners, looked our way, quizzical expressions on their faces.

My face fell. Normally, I’m proud of what I do, but my father’s obvious shame sucks the wind from my sails and leaves me dead in the water, smack in the doldrums. That my husband was attentive and being pretty dag-gone wonderful, or that I am the mother of four amazing children. I was back to being thirteen and caught climbing on our roof with four of the neighborhood’s more colorful characters. My stepmother, God love her, is darn proud. It didn’t matter that I looked good, sort of a Bridget Bardot goes to a garden party.

“Jerry. Stop that.”

My father’s hearing is bad and he refuses to change the battery in his hearing aid. He started to make jokes about me and how hard I was to raise. Especially compared to, THE PERFECT CHILD! My sister. My sister the Ivy League graduate. My sister, the engineer at Ford. My sister, the multi language speaking world traveler. My sister, the skinny one. My sister who never did anything stupid in her life. I, on the other hand, used stupid as my rallying cry and God forbid, I ever forget it. Even for a moment.

The woman at the other end of the table didn’t know what to make of this odd combination of family dynamic. I wanted to hide. Dropping to the floor and doing a Marine style belly-crawl to the door would probably have been considered a tad rude. It also would have messed up a perfectly nice outfit. I excused myself and hit the ladies room, before the tears fell.

I’ve tried to explain the facts about romance writing to my father, but nasty ideas about the genre persist with those of his generation. Okay, the truth is I could be named Poet Laureate and I would still not begin to approach, THE PERFECT CHILD. Which is not to say I resent my sister. Childless, at forty one, she’s beginning to figure out that a fat paycheck is not the key to happiness. Something I put together years ago. See, there’s some wisdom in living your life fast and hard. At least fast and hard compare to my sister. Compared to a Hell’s Angel, I’m- an angel.

I hid out in the Jon until I could face the room with my normal, “Pomeranian on crack” appeal and wiped frustrated tears from my eyes. It does not matter to my family that most women who read romance are educated, funny, employed, and in all ways interesting. It does not matter that this genre is among the fastest growing and has been for years. It does not matter that the caliber of writing is beyond excellent, or that it’s incredibly hard to be published, let alone multi published, as I will be in two short weeks. Nope, they’re shameful in his eyes and that’s, that.

I called daddy, yesterday. I hemmed and hawed and eventually told him to stop putting me down about my career. Thankfully, my stepmother had already lambasted him, but good and he was quiet, if not apologetic. The family dynamic is such that I will never approach the status of, THE PERFECT CHILD, but I may yet carve out my niche as someone to at least be not embarrassed about. If not someone who inspires a rush of full on pride. That’s okay, I have my husband and he’s proud enough for all of them.

I’m adopted. Never a secret, I’ve known about my status as, “adopted child” for as long as I can remember. My parents were blasé about the whole thing. It was the way they grew their family and no big deal. The rest of the world did not see it that way.

Well meaning family friends shoved the experience down my throat as a twisted honor, “how kind the Lindquist’s are for taking you in.” This made me feel like some sort of exotic pet. There was also the, “secret” camp. They give you odd looks and treat you as if adoption is akin to a drug addiction, “she’s adopted. How sad. Her mother didn’t want her.” Most of the time I do not think about my adoption. Other people might have problems with it, but they are not me and they can deal with their issues on their time.

At least that is what I firmly believed, until I started to examine my writing. The reality of a woman filled with hard questions leaps from my work. An orange and black blurred tiger that springs at me from the brush. For some lame, reason my status as, “adopted child” pops to the top of my thoughts more and more these days. It could be part of my midlife crisis, or that my boys are starting to ask about their own adoptions. Two of my four living children came to us by way of an adoptive, Hail Mary Pass after unexpected pregnancy. All I can say is, thank goodness for broken condoms and selfless birth mothers.

Seven and nine, their adoptions are beginning to be a bigger part of who they are. More than a child we planned, they are children we sought out. They are also children whose birth mothers could not raise, for reasons my boys are too young to understand. The experience builds up the adoptee and tears them down at the same time. No matter how justified, there always seems to be little tickle in your mind that whispers, “given away.” You try not to think re-gifting, old clothes, and books shelved past their usefulness, but it’s akin to trying not to think of a penguin. Go ahead. Try not to think of a penguin. I’ll wait. What did you think of? A penguin. Gets em every time. We adoptees don’t sit in a poor me pity corner and mourn. Mostly we are A-Okay with the experience. It’s just another way to build a family. I thought that was me. A happy product of adoption, joyfully dancing along on her journey to author-hood. HA!

One day it hit me that all my heroines were either parentless or had parents that were so god-awful they were wonderfully comedic. Just what was I trying to say here? I love my mom, she’s gone now, but I still hold her with me in my heart and always will. We enjoyed a wonderful relationship. Which made me wonder, why am I so evil to my characters? It’s not as if they did anything to me. I give them nightmare messes of parents who do not understand them or try to compete with their kids for the romantic interest. There was a mystery here and I was determined to get to the rock bottom of it.

I grabbed some good chocolate and decided to think this through. I got a headache and a one-pound gain. Not exactly, enlightenment. Could this abuse of parent figures be an attack on my birth mother? I didn’t want to think so, but that possibility lay out there in my personal ort-cloud of issues. Believe me, that’s one hell of a cosmic body. Yikes, I don’t even know the woman and there was a real possibility that I attacked her through my writing. For what? A five-minute transgression in an otherwise good-girl life? Hardly fair to her. Me either, come to think of it.

I am happy to report, that after a few more chocolates and some long runs to remove said chocolate from my ass, I am not beating up my adopted or birth parents through the written word. My characters build futures with one another that embrace their unknown or difficult pasts. Just as I have done and do. My characters learn to accept the past and do not wish to change it. Wow, maybe I should try that. Ya think?

I watch them deal with a difficult situation by talking it out and moving on with their lives. No, it’s not a panacea, rather a step forward. A step I think I have been telling myself to take through my work. Even if the ground is a long ways down.

I’m a little surprised that I am this smart. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m smart, but I have my limits and this has surpassed what I thought they were. Guess there’s another lesson there.

I don’t know who my birth parents are. I’ve wrestled with the questions about them and I’m not ready to know to know the answers. I may never be ready. That’s fine. I don’t have to follow someone else’s idea of what the past should mean to me, or who I should welcome into my life. If my boys elect to build a relationship with them, I welcome that. I’ve been asked if I worry about being replaced? Nope. I know who wiped their butts and held them when they were sick. Womb time is important, but so is reading, “The Velveteen Rabbit” fifty-four nights in a row. We all play our parts.

My writing shows me that I can forge a path, unfettered from past pain and regrets. That I can live with joy, despite, or because of the journey of others. My characters learn to neither regret, nor change the past of those around them. A gift I give Nancy through my work. A wordy permission slip to love without judgment.

I thought I wrote to entertain others. Learning that, in part, I am writing to fulfill a deeper need has freed me to explore parental love in a new way. To tell a woman who I may never know that something difficult in her life turned out pretty good for me.

I just drew up a character for a new novel. I’m happy to report she has a wonderful friendship with her mom, even if the mom is a bit of a nut ball. Live and learn.

Nancy Liedel
Publishing as Nancy Lindquist
Author of, “How to Conjure a Man”
Nancy’s Blog
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